


We're Gonna Be Okay

by Cant_We_Just_Dance



Series: She Always Will [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angie is sick, Awkward Almost-Stepdad Thomas, Gen, M/M, Polar Bears - Freeform, Sick baby, Storm - Freeform, hospital mention, mostly fluff i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 20:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13865844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cant_We_Just_Dance/pseuds/Cant_We_Just_Dance
Summary: In which Angie is sick, Alexander takes her to the hospital, and Philip meets a tall man who won't stop stuttering and is most definitely his dad's boyfriend.





	We're Gonna Be Okay

Angie had been sick all week.

At first, it was just a few little sneezes here and there, more spit-up than usual after being fed, small things like that. She would refuse to go anywhere without being carried, as opposed to just earlier when she’d crawled anywhere she was allowed to, and some places she wasn’t. Fussiness was discovered to be the understatement of the century when Alexander had tried to change her diaper and been met with a screaming banshee in place of his angelic little girl.

Her tiny onesie-covered feet would kick up at whoever tried to touch her, and she cried most hours of the night, eventually causing Alexander to simply hold her in his free arm as he typed up reports for work the next day. He couldn’t quite remember a time when his little girl had been so loud, other than her first few days home, where Alexander had wished more than anything to have Eliza back. Those times, however, were struck with grief and soaked in bitter honey, slowing down every lonely moment. Philip would crawl into bed with him, lying asleep in his lap as Alexander did his best to soothe the newborn baby Angie. Her aunts had offered to care for her, but Alexander had declined, citing that he needed time alone after his wife’s passing.

Oddly enough, Angie stayed silent throughout her mother’s funeral, having fallen into a pleasant nap that ended as soon as they left, stuffed into the hot car with humid air. Touching the back of his hand to Angie’s forehead now, however, was the only heat he could find, a deep winter chill keeping blankets wrapped around the two of them tightly. With a blizzard on its way, it wasn’t exactly safe to head outside, and when Philip was an infant, he’d been just as loud and had a tiny cold only once. The doctors had said he’d be fine as long as he had plenty of fluids and kept warm. Now, though, everything was different.

After almost an entire day of searching through the attic, avoiding the boxes with carefully printed cursive on them, Alexander sighed as he found the forehead thermometer, which would be safe to use on Angie. Upon setting her down in her nursery and taking her temperature, his face went pale and he set the device aside, pulling her into the baby car seat/carrier and quickly heading downstairs as he dialed a well-remembered phone number.

“Yes, I know it’s short notice, but Angie has a fever of a hundred and three point nine? I understand- don’t you dare tell me to calm down!” Alexander spoke hurriedly into the phone, eyes narrowed in irritation and yet also wide with concern as he ran downstairs, catching the attention of Philip, who had been quietly watching the morning cartoons, having been given a snow day off from school. “You’re already on your way? Thank god, I couldn’t leave Pip alone, and he can barely even look at hospitals anymore…”

“Papa?” Philip asked softly, pulling aside the blanket that had been covering most of his face, the fuzz tickling his freckled cheeks. “What’s going on? Is Angie still sick?”

Alexander hung up his phone, sighing softly and reaching down to ruffle Philip’s curls, which shone in the fluorescent light of the living room lamp next to the couch. “Angie’s very sick, Pip-Pip, and I have to take her to the hospital. I’m having a friend come over to watch you while I’m gone. It might be a few hours, or even a day or two, but I promise that I’ll call you. He should be here in half an hour, he doesn’t live too far away, but with the storm on its way, he could be out there for a while.”

“...Is Angie gonna be okay?” Philip squeaked out, eyes wide with fear as he stared up at his dad, clutching the blankets around him. “Can I- can I do anything to help her? She doesn’t have to go to the hospital, I swear, I can help take care of her until she gets better here at home, she can’t go to the hospital, she needs to stay!”

“If you want to help, I need you to go and get a few baby blankets and the diaper bag from her room,” Alexander explained gently, keeping his tone even in order to not increase his son’s panic. “I have to pack a couple bottles and find my winter coat and boots so that I can go outside without becoming a popsicle. Can you do those things for me, little guy?”

Philip nodded quickly and bolted off the couch, running as fast as his legs would carry him and falling up the stairs more than he would care to admit. He grabbed as many tiny little blankets as he could, and heaved the diaper bag over his shoulders, heading back downstairs as best he could. His bare feet ran across the carpet as he dropped the diaper bag beside Angie’s carrier and began to tuck the blankets around her shoulders and under her little feet, to seal in the warmth from her small body. As soon as he’d finished, his father ran back into the living room, tugging on his coat and a beanie pulled over the top of his head, making small strands of hair stick out at odd angles. Before he could zip up his coat or talk to Philip about not opening the door while he was gone, there was a knock at the front door.

Opening the door and hugging the person closely, kissing their cheek, Alexander pulled them inside, grabbed Angie and the diaper bag, and left as soon as the new person had arrived.

“Uh… Hey, kid,” The person said after a few moments of silence, running a hand through his dark curls and trying to figure out what to say to the six-year-old in front of him. He took a nervous step forward but quickly retracted it, biting his lower lip as he did his best not to avert his gaze. “I’m Thomas, and your dad-”

“Your my papa’s boyfriend?” Philip asked, not caring that he was cutting off the man’s words, and not particularly old enough to be scolded for such an action. The child made no moves toward the man, nor any away from him. Instead, he peered up as though he were conversing with a being from another planet, and to a child of his age, he might as well have been. “And my papa called you to take care of me because he wants me to like you.”

“I…” Thomas stammered, eyes wide as his hands began to fidget, toying with his belt loops and crinkling his heavy winter jacket. “Who… Who told you that… Little guy?”

“My name is Philip,” Philip pointed out, with the self-assured confidence that every child possesses, right before the world believes it acceptable to tear them down to the earth from whence all humanity originated. Funnily enough, most people cannot discern the difference between where we have been, and where we should be headed, though in the end we are all headed, in one way or another, back into the earth. Philip thought, as most children do, that he didn’t care very much about all that, and would instead be content to speak his mind, as most adults don’t, and as most teenagers are mistreated for. “I told myself all that, and I know that it’s true, because my papa could’ve called aunt Peggy, and she woulda been here even faster than you were.”

“I guess you’re right, Philip,” Thomas admitted, running a hand through his hair once more, forcing an awkward smile onto his face as he tried to figure out what to do with the child in front of him. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends? I’d be more than happy to… Hang out with you? We could play card games, or watch cartoons, and I have Netflix, so we can watch some movies if you want to do that?”

“Are you just being nice to me so that you can marry my dad?” Philip asked, his words undiluted by anything as silly as self-consciousness, unfiltered and spoken plain as day, as though he were asking a simple question like an inquiry to what Thomas’s favorite color was. 

“He- I’m actually- You’re not…” Thomas stammered, eyes even wider as he struggled to find the words he needed to correctly answer the question without avoiding it or saying anything that would be relayed to Alexander and result in a serious talk with his boyfriend. “...Philip, buddy, marriage is more than just being nice to the other person’s kids, I… I’m being nice to you because you seem like a good kid, and… Getting married would require being with someone for a long time, and loving each other, but that’s something your dad can explain to you, and I really shouldn’t be talking about this with you and-”

“You love my papa though, don’t you?” Philip inquired, furrowing his eyebrows and crawling onto the couch and back into his blanket cocoon as he waited for Thomas to produce a sufficient answer- that was to say, an answer comprised of more than just a few stammered syllables. Having evidently grown tired of no answer, Philip sighed and began to speak again. “You have to love him back, or I won’t let him date you anymore. Papa said that he’s with you because he loves you, and he loved Mama, too, but he loved her in a different way. He said that people need a lot of different kinds of love, but I don’t really get it. Do you love Papa the way he loves you? Or is it like how Papa loved Mama, or how I loved Mama? Because if you don’t love him the same way he loves you, I’ll tell him, and then he won’t be sad like he was when I wanted him to stop loving you.”

“You- You asked him to do what, now?” Thomas stuttered, far too confused for his taste.

“Well,” Philip began, tucking the blankets around his tiny body, small even for his age. “I was really mad that he fell in love so soon after Mama left us, and said that I would run away again if he didn’t stop loving you. But then he explained how he loves you, and that he loves me too, but that’s different love, and he loves me the way he loved Mama. He said that he wanted love like he loves you. Aren't you gonna sit down with me?”

Struck silent by what the child had told him, Thomas sat beside him, wrapping his arms around himself to push away the chill that was let in along with himself. Before he even had the chance to shiver, he felt a blanket be set down in his lap. Looking up, he saw Philip rearranging his blanket pile and pulling out a few for Thomas. Not one to complain when given the warmth he needed, he pulled the blankets around his shoulders and gave the child a small smile.

“...That’s a lot to process, for a kid,” Thomas said after a few moments of no sound other than the wind beating on the windows as snow piled up on the ground. “I’m sorry I had to be the reason you had to hear all of that. I… It was my idea, to meet you, and I should’ve waited more time for that.”

“S’okay,” Philip responded softly, cuddling up against his blankets as if they were his papa, who would usually hold him through storms like these, where it seemed as though the windows would shatter from the next shock of wind. “I’m the one who ran away. Papa… Papa said that he’s loved you for a long time, so I think we can be friends. Not best friends, since I’m best friends with Theodosh… Theodor… Theloni… Theo. I’m best friends with Theo from school. But you and I can be regular friends, if you want.”

“I… That’d be nice,” Thomas replied, smiling for real at the child’s words. “...Your papa’s at the hospital with your sister, and they might be gone for awhile, especially since the storm. You gonna be okay with being with me for that long?”

“...Yeah. You seem pretty cool- wait. Do you like polar bears?”

“I love polar bears.”

“Okay, yeah. We’re gonna be okay.”


End file.
